JP Nunez
It’s not often that a language catches my attention. I watch movies from all over the world, so I don’t usually care what language a film is in. But An Taibhse (The Ghost) was different. This is the first horror movie shot completely in Irish, so it’s a milestone for the genre. It’s a must-watch for its historical importance alone, so when I got the chance to review it, I couldn’t say no.
An Taibhse (The Ghost) was written and directed by John Farrelly, and it stars Livvy Hill, Tom Kerrisk, and Anthony Murphy. In the film, Éamon and his daughter Máire have been tasked with maintaining a remote mansion during a harsh Irish winter, and at first, everything seems to go pretty smoothly.
But soon enough, the titular ghost makes its presence known to this poor family, and everything changes. Máire begins to experience terrifying, inexplicable phenomena, and after Éamon injures himself chopping wood, the man undergoes an almost Jack Torrance-like descent into madness.
As you might be able to tell from that plot synopsis, An Taibhse (The Ghost) stands or falls almost entirely on the strength of its two main characters. Sure, a third person does show up eventually, but for the vast majority of the movie’s runtime, it’s just Éamon and Máire stuck in this huge house. They’re the heart and soul of this story, so if they don’t knock it out of the park, the film won’t stand a chance.
And to be frank, for the first 20 minutes or so, I didn’t love them. Actors Livvy Hill and Tom Kerrisk deliver almost every single line with a very wooden cadence, so I had a tough time buying into them. But when Éamon has his accident, both of these performers do a complete 180.
Let’s start with Livvy Hill. She plays Máire, and once things start going south, her main job is to be sheepish and terrified. It seems like everywhere this poor girl goes, there’s something waiting to scare her out of her mind, and Hill is totally convincing in the role. You see it in her facial expressions, the way she talks, and even the way she moves, so you’ll almost feel the character’s fear yourself.
However, as good as she is, the best performance in An Taibhse (The Ghost) belongs to Tom Kerrisk, the actor who plays Éamon. Like I said before, his character descends into utter madness a la Jack Torrance in The Shining, and while he doesn’t quite reach Jack Nicholson-level greatness (but then again, who does?), he’s more than a worthy successor.
In fact, he gets to show off a wider range than Nicholson did. Éamon’s road to insanity is much more up and down than Jack’s, and Kerrisk nails it every single step of the way. For example, there are shots where he’ll creep you out without saying a word, there are times when he drunkenly allows his anger to get the best of him, and there are a couple of scenes where he acts like the nicest guy in the world while doing genuinely terrible things.
But hands down, Kerrisk’s most impressive scene comes when Éamon confronts his daughter about the supposedly shabby work she’s been doing around the house. The guy is absolutely livid, and he goes so ballistic you might even think the filmmakers got Nicolas Cage to shoot this scene.
It’s a legit masterclass in rage, and to top it all off, Livvy Hill plays off that anger perfectly. She cowers against her dresser like a frightened child, and that terrified response amplifies Kerrisk’s effectiveness exponentially. It makes for an amazing one-two punch of fear and fury, so this isn’t just Tom Kerrisk’s best moment. It’s the best scene in An Taibhse (The Ghost).
And speaking of fear, we have to talk about the horror in this movie. From start to finish, An Taibhse (The Ghost) is dripping with an atmosphere of dread and uncertainty, so even when nothing particularly spooky is happening, you always feel like you’re only a small step away from a horrific and tragic turn.
Then, when the terror really comes to the fore, the film gets even better. At times, it plays a bit like a mixtape of the greatest haunted house hits–there are closets opening by themselves, noises coming from just outside a room, and spectral presences trying to turn doorknobs–but writer/director John Farrelly executes these tried-and-true frights well enough that they never feel worn out.
He uses them to create genuine edge-of-your-seat tension, and more often than not, he makes you sit with that tension for an extended period of time. He slowly increases the suspense and forces you to stew in the uncertainty of what this entity is going to do next, so by the time the jump scares come, they’re just the cherry on top of an already deliciously unnerving sequence.
All of that horror leads to an excellently edited, almost psychedelic finale that’s super fun to watch, but on a narrative level, An Taibhse (The Ghost) doesn’t quite stick the landing. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that it doesn’t wrap everything up in a completely satisfying way, so when the credits began to roll, I wasn’t entirely sure how to connect all the dots. To be fair, that ambiguity might be intentional, but I would’ve liked at least a tiny bit more clarity.
Thankfully though, that’s not nearly enough to ruin the experience. On the whole, An Taibhse (The Ghost) is a chilling exercise in classic haunted-house terror brought to life by a pair of excellent performances, so keep an eye out for this movie. I don’t know when it’ll be released to the public, but when it does, I highly recommend that you check it out.
An Taibhse (The Ghost) is currently making its rounds on the festival circuit, and it’s set to make its US premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival on October 19.
